The Government Palace ( fi, Valtioneuvoston linna, sv, Statsrådsborgen) is the executive office building of the Council of State of Finland. It overlooks the Senate Square in central

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...

. The Government Palace houses the Prime Minister's Office, the Office of the Chancellor of Justice and most departments of the

Ministry of Finance A ministry of finance is a part of the government in most countries that is responsible for matters related to the finance. Lists of current ministries of finance Named "Ministry" * Ministry of Finance (Afghanistan) * Ministry of Finance and Ec ...

. Its former name is the Senate House (''Senaatintalo''). The building is usually not open to the public but on occasions there are open days.

History

Work on building the Senate began in 1818. The

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

moved to the palace overlooking Senate Square in 1822. The wing on the Aleksanterinkatu side was completed in 1824 followed by the Ritarinkatu wing in 1828. The Hallituskatu side was not closed off until several decades later with a courtyard annex added in 1860 to house the Senate printing press. The Ritarikatu and Hallituskatu sides were later subsequently renovated and altered. The Government Palace acquired its present appearance between 1916 and 1917 with the heightening of the Ritarikatu wing. In addition to the organs of the Senate itself, the Senate building was in the early years also home to a wide range of other important public agencies and offices, including the predecessor of the

Bank of Finland The Bank of Finland ( fi, Suomen Pankki, sv, Finlands Bank) is the central bank of Finland. It views itself as the fourth oldest surviving central bank in the world, after Sweden's Riksbank, the Bank of England, and the Bank of France. History ...

, Postal Directorate, Customs Board and National Archives. The Imperial Alexander Pharmacy was also located in the Senate building before it moved to the building completed on the opposite side of Senate Square in 1832. In 1904

Eugen Schauman Eugen Waldemar Schauman (russian: Евгений Владимирович Шауман, ''Evgeny Vladimirovich Shauman''); ( – ) was a Swedish speaking Finnish nationalist and nobleman. Schauman assassinated the Imperial Russian Governor-Ge ...

shot

Governor-General of Finland The governor-general of Finland ( fi, Suomen kenraalikuvernööri; sv, generalguvernör över Finland; russian: генерал-губернатор Финляндии) was the military commander and the highest administrator of Finland sporadic ...

Nikolai Bobrikov Nikolay Ivanovich Bobrikov (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Бо́бриков; in St. Petersburg – June 17, 1904 in Helsinki, Grand Duchy of Finland) was a Russian general and politician. He was the Governor-General of Finl ...

in the second floor level of the staircase of the building.

Gallery

References

External links

* * {{Helsinki Cityscape Buildings and structures in Helsinki Carl Ludvig Engel buildings Palaces in Finland Neoclassical architecture in Finland Kruununhaka

History

Gallery

See also

References

Further reading

External links